disabling splash screens

hi can anyone tell me how to turn off the splash screens for each of these programs coz thay are causing me troubles see i was over at the grc news boreds and i saw this cool trick to turn off the splash screen for zone alarm so i tryed it and it worked so i tryed it for some other programs and it worked for them too but not these ones

visual zone avg adaware icq kazaa lite and outlook express

2 can any one tell me if there is a way that i can speed up my net conection because i had to switch to bt and there servce is flakey at best and even though i got a 56k modem i can only get a 36k conection

Hi Bethrezen! I can't answer your first question but maybe I can help with the second. There are (far as I know) three Net connections via ISP: cable (fastest--about 25x regular dial-up), highspeed DSL (middle--5x slower than cable but 5x faster than reg dial-up), and regular dial-up (slowest). I get DSL thru my phone company. Maybe yours has that too. Costs a little more than dial-up but is quicker and more dependable. Cable (in my area) costs 3 times that of DSL and is always on. You can turn off DSL (and of course dial-up).

Be patient. More postings will arrive! (Don't be surprised if this gets moved to Software and Services.)

i cant get rid of the splash screen on the free version the way you sergested coz that box is grayed out

outlook express

is there a safer way to get rid of the splash screen than reg edit coz editing the registry can be dangerous even if ya know what ya doin and being new to the world of computers im not really confordent that i would beable to do that with out messing up outlook express

Don't give up! I'm pretty sure we have people here who know what to do. I haven't tried it yet but I think you can record your registry on a backup so you can make changes. If it doesn't work you can reinsert it. But, wait awhile for the others to respond.

for ICQ, click on the button called Main (or the big letters ICQ) at the bottom of the buddy list, then go to Preferences, Miscellaneous, and under General Settings un-click the box "Show the Welcome to ICQ screen when launching ICQ" then close icq, reopen, and the setting should take place (as for the ads in icq, i would recommend leaving them be because icq is a free program and the ads are part of the agreement the user makes to use ICQ----trying to get rid of them could end up with ICQ getting cranky or maybe not operating at all)

for many shareware programs, the option to remove the splash screens or advertisements is usually grayed out as the removal of them is usually an incentive to purchase the program, getting rid of them any other way would be against the user agreement and wrong (many of these programs are well worth the small fee it costs to purchase them, which gives continued support to the authors to improve and update their programs, for us)

The Outlook Express splash screen unfortunately does need to be disabled through the registry.
There's no other way.

Normally I'd whip up a little reg file for you to do that, but one part of the subkey to be edited is a unique Identity number, so you really need to do it yourself.

And if you follow these directions, you won't be messing up Outlook Express:

Shut down Outlook Express.

Now go to Start > run, and type Regedit, then OK.
You'll see a Windows Explorer type interface, that you navigate in exactly the same way, by clicking the little +-es in order to open the branches.

The difference is, that the Folders and subfolders here are called Keys and Subkeys.

By clicking the +-es, navigate down to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Identies > The very long Identity number (called a CLSID) > Software > Microsoft, > Outlook Express > and then click once on '5.0' in order to open that 'folder', and to display its contents in the right hand window.

In this right pane, right-click on a blank area, choosing "New" then "DWORD Value." Name this value NoSplash (written exactly like that).
Right-click on the new DWORD Value you made and choose "Modify." On the dialog box that appears, enter 1 as the value data and press OK to close the dialog box.
Now, close Registry Editor.

"for many shareware programs, the option to remove the splash screens or advertisements is usually grayed out as the removal of them is usually an incentive to purchase the program, getting rid of them any other way would be against the user agreement and wrong (many of these programs are well worth the small fee it costs to purchase them, which gives continued support to the authors to improve and update their programs, for us) "

i get ya point about this and usualy i would not tamper with programs in such a way as it is againt the licence agrement the only resion i asked is that i got so much starting with my comp to keep it protected that if frequentley causes my computer to crash on start up

as for the others like kazaa icq i wanted rid of the splash screens coz there anoying and periodicley if im using mutiple programs at onec it causes my computer to crash i guess i just need to get my computer upgraded mabe that will fix my troubles

tony

thanks for the instructions on how to disable the splash screen in outlook

It's quite a popular tweak, and you really don't risk messinmg anything up, as I already said.

But if you're going to do anything in the Registry you're not entirely confortable with, here's how to make a quick Registry backup of your Registry (Win 98 and ME) before you start:

Go to Start > Run > type scanregw > 'Yes'.

By the way, Windows already makes and stores a backup of the registry when you start your computer successfully each day.
By default, five previous copies or the registry are stored.

To restore one of these previous copies:

- Restart your computer, press and hold down the CTRL key until the Windows Startup menu appears, and then choose Command Prompt Only from the Startup menu.
If you are running Windows Me, start your computer with the startup disk.

- At the MS-DOS prompt, type cd windows\command, and then press ENTER.
- At the C: prompt, type scanreg /restore, and then press ENTER.
- Select the previous registry you want to restore, and then press ENTER.
NOTE: A properly working registry has the word "Started" next to the date.
- When you receive notification that you restored a properly working registry, press ENTER to restart your computer.